This unique sculpture garden, the work of the city's internationally acclaimed artist Nek Chand, spreads over 64 acres. The visitor is led through a maze of paths, chambers and canyons, each presenting a glimpse of a fantasy world. The Rock Garden has charmed millions of visitors since it was first opened to the public in 1976, not only by the visual delights if offers, but its strange history. Nek Chand was a road inspector of the city Public Works Department when he began to transform a dump of discarded building materials. He kept the garden a closely guarded secret - never suspecting that one day critics would praise his unique works and he would exhibit them in Paris' Museum of Modern Art and in other cities around the world. The first phase of the rock Garden is a small canyon - part natural, albeit peculiar, rock forms, and part amalgam of broken ceramic fixtures, pebbles and coal slag. It is the sort of place that might be inhabited by trolls. The canyon opens into a series of "chambers" each one filled with scores of human and animal forms in concrete and broken ceramic or glass. Each one is different. The second phase recreates a mountain village on the banks of a stream; its inhabitants -some humble -some aristocratic -sensed rather than seen. Courtesy of India Tourism Board